Healthy Dining, HealthyThinking

[Guest guest]

Hari Sauri das prabhu wrote:

 

> ...Apart from Gaura Purnima, Mayapur has lousy feasts, and

> sometimes not feast at all after a fast day. They like to

> observe the ekadasi breakfast but rarely cook a nice feast

> the following day.

 

Ananda das prabhu wrote:

> ;-) Apparently, my dear godbrother Hari Sauri das is trying to get

>the franchise to publish the "Michelin Guide" to Hare Krishna temples.

 

>To me, chapatis, dhal, rice or potatoes, and a steamed vegetable

>has always seemed like a feast. It might be better if we prepared

>simpler meals with little or no butter and sugar, and much greater

>emphasis on raw fruits and vegetables. They may make "lousy feasts",

>but they will make healthier devotees.

 

I don't altogether agree.

 

According to my research the healthy food is that food grown on healthy

soil without the use of chemicals. Not that one who prefers it

shouldn't eat raw foods. The essential point is that the food should be

fresh and grown in the proper way.. Milk and milk products ie. butter,

ghee etc., are foods in the mode of goodness therefore there need be no

restriction in my opinion, it is a question of constitution and of how

much you eat. The butter should be UNSALTED (Srila Prabhupada,

Siksamrta). The prasadam should be served HOT before it gets more than

two hours old (after this time the vitamin 'C' drastically disappears,

Sinclair, Oxford University) To suggest that we take up a diet of raw

vegetables is excessive in my opinion, although obviously there is more

in raw food than cooked. However if the above criteria are followed ie.

food grown in the proper way...good health will increase day by day and

disease will diminish day by day. (Howard, Sykes, Turner, Balfour,

Billington) And excellent feasts will be achievable!

 

Our second book, from Agriculture and the Environment, is entitled:

'Ayurvedic Agriculture: Farming and gardening for Health or Disease.'

 

Your servant,

 

Radha Krsna das.

SUGAR:

 

There have been discussions on White Sugar before, a communication to

Padasevanam Prabhu from myself on 26th Jan '98 entitled White Four,

White Sugar.

I made an additional note to these discussions called 'sugar papers':

'Krsna likes sugar, 8th Canto, but Mother Yasoda and the Gopis lived

simply they would not have got white sugar from a sugar refinery which

employed the bones of slaughtered animals (cows) to make it white?'

 

Another devotee later quoted Srila Prabhupada saying that he wanted the

devotees (in Mayapur) to use Gour, grown on our own property!

Apparently the devotees tried this and decided against using it in

preference for white sugar. Srila Prabhupada may have sanctioned the use

of white sugar in the beginning, like so many other things. But does

this mean we cannot progress from the early days and meet up to the full

recommendations given in Bhagavad Gita. Foods in the mode of goodness

etc., as we have done with Arcana Padati.

I personally don't think it is so difficult. The more natural the

better....We go to great lengths to obtain certain spices and other

things from Indian food stores in all countries. Pure natural Gour is

also available in many of these stores and so is raw cane sugar and

muscavado.

 

And what about preaching? Who comes to our temples and says: I hope you

use white sugar? I always hear the reverse myself.

 

If varnasrama development has anything to do with this issue then the

question might be raised: What does Krsna prefer? Surely, if possible,

more the things that we can produce ourselves, without the use of big

exploitative factories. Didn't we used to say 'You are, what you eat'